Crusader Kings II: On Linux

I am rather excited about writing this one, especially with the passion I have for this game.

Paradox Interactive, the company behind grand-strategy games such as Europa Universalis III (and soon IV), Victoria II and Hearts of Iron III have made their debut on Linux.

For those who don’t know what grand-strategy involves or what makes Paradox a company worth noting, let me begin by explaining a little bit about their games before I continue.
The Strategy genre in gaming is a very broad one, and the term is very vague. Spanning from real-time strategy like Age of Empires franchise, to turn-based strategy like the Total War series and the Civilization series.
The majority of Paradox games and Crusader Kings II included falls something along the lines of the Total War series.
The idea is that you are a king of a nation and you effectively rule every aspect of the kingdom.
But here is where the grand-strategy comes in.
Unlike Total War, Crusader Kings II does not really have a set goal, other than survive that is.
Sure it has a scoring system, but that’s more for those who find such a thing important.

You rule your kingdom between 1066 and the 1300’s (that is if you have no add-ons), and your role includes choosing the people in your court, arranging marriages and betrothals, waging war, making peace, set taxes, change laws, keeping your subjects happy, keeping the dukes and counts happy.
But the real objective of this game is to keep your line alive.
You start with a king of your choosing, whether you pick king William the conqueror of England, or the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, it is up to you. But you can also go more low-profile and become a simple duke of a small region.
Then you marry, have children and rule.
However, make sure you keep having children to take over your kingdom or region when you pass to the realm of the dead, because if your direct line dies out, it’s game over.

Sound simple?

Not really, children could contract diseases and die early, or in my case, your 24 year old heir dies months before your king dies, leaving your 1 year old grandson to take over. And as you can imagine, nobles find that a nice opportunity to really stir up trouble.
And don’t think that brothers and cousins are nice either. They are more than happy to kill you and take over the crown.
And finally, make sure you think carefully about who you pick to give titles to, their descendants might make you regret that move 100 years later.

I wish I could write more about this but it will simply take up way too much time, but if you are the type of person who would love to be king, this is a game for you, but it’s definately not simple!

Now, let’s get to the point.

Paradox Interactive decided to be the first (major 3rd party) company to embrace Linux and release one of their best games for Linux.
They have also released all their current add-ons and expansions for the Linux version, and their up and coming ‘The Old Gods’ expansion pack will be released the same time as on Windows.
But, they have also announced that the up and coming title ‘Europa Universalis IV’ will also be released for Linux too.

Currently the game is available from Steam for $40.
But at the time of writing this article, there is a 50% off sale on this game directly from the Paradox site, for only $20.
The link for this is: http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/crusader-kings-ii#buy_game-tab
You will receive a Steam code when you purchase it, so all the usual Steam goodness is included.

Now finally, something worth noting is that I also have the Windows version of this game which I have ran through Wine for some time.
But unlike a lot of other games, this game is unbelievably smooth compared to it’s Wine equivalent.

If you have some issues with speed with this game, please go to your ‘Documents’ directory, navigate to the Paradox Interactive and then Crusader Kings II folder, and then open up the settings.txt file in Gedit (or vim or whatever you prefer) and turn off trees, this will help most definately.

I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do and why not look me up on Steam.
Feel free to add me: ViaNocturna85